Sitting to the east

Sloping down to the edge  

Of that other world

In the summer sun

In the winter chill

The sentinel watched over

The little family in the cottage in the hollow

 

Lately it had felt her sorrow  

It knew when she left Pant y Lleiniau

And walked slowly along the cart track

To reach the little bridge under the trees

Where she crossed Nant yr Efail               

It knew that she turned to follow the path

Beside the little stream

To leave by the gate onto the moorland -

All this it knew

 

As she walked out into the wilderness

Beyond the gate it could no longer feel her pain -

The moor was wild, a place of mystery

A place of twisted willows, sedge and deep pools

Where under the moon it often sensed

A timeless future;

Whose drifting mists sometimes spread out

Into his world as their fog bedewed

His field grasses

 

The sentinel watched

And saw nothing

It would never know her destiny

The sentinel watched

But she would never return

 

Many years later...

The sentinel knew him

When he clambered over the northern gate

And walked beside the fence towards the corner

Where its land dipped down to the moor

It knew when he stopped

In the hidden hollow by the fence

 

Sheltered by some ancient gorse bushes -

He lay on the dry grass, his head cushioned by reeds

Looking out over the moorland

It knew his sorrow

As he lay on its turf

Thinking of his wife